If you’re a conscientious citizen who made a vaccine appointment as soon as you were able, the rapid spread of the Delta variant might have you exercising some extra caution and keeping an eye out for new mask mandates. If you’re a Republican congressman, congrats on getting the vaccine this week?
 

• The Delta variant now accounts for an estimated 83 percent of all sequenced coronavirus cases in the U.S., CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced in a Tuesday Senate hearing. That’s up from 50 percent the week of July 3. Walensky told lawmakers that nearly two-thirds of U.S. counties had vaccinated less than 40 percent of their residents, giving the Delta variant ample opportunity to make itself at home.
   
• Coronavirus deaths have risen nearly 48 percent over the past week, the vast majority of them easily preventable. And while public-health officials are sounding the alarm that this is now a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” millions of Americans up to their eyeballs in right-wing misinformation haven’t gotten the memo. A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that 37 percent of unvaccinated Americans consider the vaccine to be a greater health risk than coronavirus, and 34 percent aren’t sure. 
   
• Given that landscape—and the ineligibility of children under 12 to get vaxxed—the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended on Monday that all kids over age two should wear masks when they return to school this fall, regardless of their vaccination status. That goes a step further than the latest CDC guidelines, which only call for unvaccinated students and staff to mask up. At least nine GOP-led states have already banned school mask mandates, naturally, because what if masks got in the way of not learning about Martin Luther King?

As vaccinated liberals wearily dig their masks out of the garbage, Republicans, Fox News hosts, and tech companies would like some credit for doing the absolute least.
 

• House Minority Whip Steve Scalise received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Sunday, just seven months after vaccines were first made available to members of Congress. “It’s safe and effective,” said Scalise, whose home state of Louisiana has a 36 percent vaccination rate as a result of incessant GOP messaging to the contrary. “Some people believe that it might have been rushed. That’s not the case,” he added, wriggling gracelessly out of his hot dog costume.
   
• And while you may have seen some startled praise for Sean Hannity’s Monday night plea for viewers to “take COVID seriously,” he sandwiched those remarks between disparagement of vaccine mandates and a breathless segment on an incredibly rare vaccine risk. In other gestures towards doing something, Twitter suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for a whole twelve hours after she shared vaccine misinformation. Greene has apologized for the misstep and promised to do better. Hahaha, can you imagine? Greene called her suspension “a Communist-style attack on free speech.”

The GOP and right-wing media have yet to demonstrate any kind of meaningful shift from the death cult mentality that Donald Trump mandated as president, and they’re unlikely to start now, even as the next wave of infections rips through red states. It’s up to Democrats to simply overrule them where possible, and to make sure the electorate understands just why a preventable illness continues to pose a deadly threat.

This week on Takeline, Jason and Renee break down game 5 of the NBA Finals Bucks/Suns series and predict who will be named Finals MVP. Later in the show they discuss the recent comments from Stephen A. Smith on Shohei Ohtani and how the marketing of international athletes in America has changed. Plus, Jason and Renee debate whether or not they believe USA basketball can win gold at the Olympics. New episodes of Takeline drop every Tuesday. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has scheduled a procedural vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Wednesday, which Republicans have threatened to filibuster in the interest of forcing further delays. Senate Republicans say they’re unwilling to move to debate on the bill without the full legislative text, which has historically not been an obstacle for them on bills that they actually want to pass. Republicans have also raised fresh objections to basic elements of the deal they negotiated. If and when the vote to proceed fails on Wednesday, it doesn’t necessarily mean the bipartisan bill is doomed, but it’s not likely to pass before the scheduled August recess. Meanwhile, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said on Monday that Democrats were exploring ways to include election infrastructure in the reconciliation bill, including “incentives for voting.” They wouldn’t be able to enact any federal election standards (gotta pass the For The People Act for that), but might be able to provide financial incentives for states to adopt their own reforms—if the Senate parliamentarian is feeling loose.

• Tom Barrack, a former advisor to Donald Trump and chairman of his inaugural committee, has been arrested for illegally lobbying Trump on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. Federal prosecutors have also charged Barrack with obstruction of justice and lying to investigators. 
   
• It turns out to have been the Trump Justice Department that declined to prosecute former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for lying to Congress, not the Biden Justice Department. If you tweeted something mean about Attorney General Merrick Garland, put it back in your drafts. 
   
• The Oregon Bootleg Fire is so big that it’s generating its own weather, including, possibly, a fire tornado. Also, wildfire smoke from the west coast has now made it to New York. Anyway, the key thing is not to spend too much on climate legislation.
   
• A White House staffer and aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have tested positive for coronavirus after coming in contact with the delegation of Texas Democrats. 
   
• Lt. Gov.Mandela Barnes (D-WI) announced he’s running for Wisconsin’s open Senate seat. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) hasn’t yet said if he plans to run for a third term. 
   
• A bipartisan trio senators has unveiled legislation to re-assert congressional war powers, which would require Congress to approve the use of military force, the sale of certain types of weapons to other countries, and declarations of national emergencies. 
   
• President Biden will nominate Jonathan Kanter, a prominent Google critic, to lead the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. 
   
• Anthony Fauci did not care for Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) accusation that he had lied about whether the NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan: “Sen. Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I would like to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about.”
   
• China has denied the Biden administration’s allegations that it was behind a cyberattack on Microsoft earlier this year, and accused the U.S. of cyberattacks in return.
   
• The LAPD fireworks explosion that injured 17 people and damaged nearby homes was the result of bomb technicians just sort of eyeballing the total weight and badly overloading their disposal truck.
   
• Officials have spotted an acid-squirting nightmare bug at Big Bend National Park, so listen, a climate change-induced mass extinction event won’t be all bad.
   
• Tom Brady, welcome to the resistance. 

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wasted no time announcing his intention to sabotage the January 6 committee, after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy selected him to be the committee's ranking GOP member. Banks, who voted to object to the certification of Biden’s electoral votes on January 6 and later voted against an independent January 6 commission, does not seem to want a targeted investigation of the insurrection, for SOME REASON: “If Democrats were serious about investigating political violence, this committee would be studying not only the January 6 riot at the Capitol, but also the hundreds of violent political riots last summer when many more innocent Americans and law-enforcement officers were attacked.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has the authority to veto Banks’s appointment to the committee he wants to derail, along with the other two Republicans who supported Trump’s effort to overturn the election, but hasn’t yet said if she will.

In 2021 mental health is finally a thing, especially as people are not feeling like their normal selves. Let’s support one another and talk openly. Whether or not therapy is your thing, knowing it’s available and affordable is important, for you or perhaps a loved one.  

Millions of people are trying and loving online therapy. It doesn’t have to be sitting around just talking about your feelings.

So, what is therapy, exactly? It’s whatever you want it to be.

You can privately talk to someone if your stress is too much to manage, you’re battling a temper, having relationship issues, anxiety, depression, etc… Whatever you need, there’s no more shame in these normal human struggles. We take care of our bodies, why not our minds, too? Without a healthy mind, being truly happy and at peace is HARD.

BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours.

It’s always a good time to invest in yourself, because you are your greatest asset. See if online therapy is for you by heading to BetterHelp.com/crooked for 10% off your first month.

Israeli scientists say they’ve identified three existing drugs that appear to be effective as coronavirus treatments.

A federal judge has blocked Arkansas’s near-total abortion ban from going into effect while a legal challenge plays out. 

The Biden administration has announced that the HIV prevention pill PrEP must be completely free under almost all insurance plans. 

President Biden has now appointed more Black women to federal appeals courts than nearly any other president, six months into his term.